Walker,
Alexander. Author of the 1983 MGM-authorized bio Joan Crawford: The
Ultimate Star. (Personal note: I highly recommend this book; after I read
it, just out of curiosity, in 1987, I became a full-fledged Crawford aficionado.
Aside from the psychologically astute writing, Walker had access to innumerable
MGM documents that specifically detail Joan's interactions with the studio,
from her precise salaries at various times to inter-studio feuds, etc.)

Walker,
Jimmy. Mayor of New York City in 1933, he sent eight police motorcycles
to escort Joan and Doug Fairbanks, Jr., to the pier as they prepared to sail
on the SS Bremen for a trip to England in an attempt to salvage their
marriage.

Walsh,
Florence. Joan's New York secretary. Joan left her $10,000 in her will.

Walters,
Charles. Director of Joan's 1953 film Torch Song. A one-time dancer
and choreographer, he was Joan's personal
choice to direct this film (and also received an eyeful one evening when Joan
invited him to her home then opened her housecoat to reveal nothing on underneath,
saying, "I think you should
see what you have to work with.") Walters said 25 years after filming:

I've worked with actresses like Judy Garland and Shirley MacLaine, and
I always figured I could get the best performance from them if I knew them better
than they knew themselves. It worked with Judy Garland and Shirley MacLaine,
but not with Joan Crawford. Drunk or sober, the facade never dropped.
(JCB)

WAMPAS
(Western
Association of Motion Picture Advertisers). In an early publicity
coup, Joan was named a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1926, along with several other soon-to-be
notables.

Warhol, Andy.
(8/6/28 - 2/22/87) American Pop artist with a fascination for Joan that included
a 1962 drawing based on her 1946 Maybelline ad and
collecting some of her items at auction. (The sketch appeared at the MoMA
Warhol retrospective in 1989.) In
'76 or so, Joan told author Carl Johnes that she'd like to go out with friend
Paulette Goddard, for instance, but "Paulette is always being followed
around by that Andy Warhol and his tape recorder, and the time has passed when
Andy Warhol can dress up a room!" (LY)

Waxman,
Franz. (12/24/06 - 2/24/67) Notable conductor nominated for 11 Oscars for
his film scores, winning one in 1952 for A Place in the Sun.The
Joan films he worked on: 1936'sLove
on the Run,
'37's The Bride Wore Red,'38'sThe
Shining Hour,'39'sIce
Follies(2
songs only: "Cinderella Reel" and "Blackbirds"),and'46'sHumoresque(which was an Oscar nominee
for Best Music).

Welton, James Barratt.
Allegedly Joan's first husband
from 1923 to 1924. According to the book Gone
But Not Forgotten, he was a saxophonist with the orchestra of "The
Passing Show of 1924," in which Joan was a chorus girl, and the two married
in New York City. Says a later Welton Wife in the book:

...the big event at that time, one that has
been kept locked up in the Hall of Records, was [Joan's] first marriage. When she
arrived in Hollywood after a successful screen test to accept MGM's offer, the
marriage was verboten. Because starlets in those days testified that they were
unmarried, which was the rule. Since she [ Joan ] didn't drive in those days,
Jimmy had to drive her daily to the studio at the crack of dawn and then pick
her up while trying to keep out of sight. The marriage wore thin and they
divorced in the middle or late 20's in California.

Werblin,
Sonny. MCA executive. Joan met husband-to-beAl Steele five years before
their marriage at a party at Werblin's NYC apartment in 1950. (JCB)

Westmore,
Monty.(6/2/23 - 11/13/07) Joan's personal makeup artist for
over 10 years later in her career, including for 1962's Baby
Jane and 1969's Night Gallery episode "Eyes"
(directed by Steven Spielberg). Westmore was a third-generation
makeup artist (his grandfather was George Westmore, who came to
Hollywood in 1917 and went on to become head of makeup at MGM).
Monty began his career in 1943 at Warners, then spent 7 years at
Universal, and went on to over 100 film credits (the last, 2000's
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas).

Westmore
on Joan, from a 2000 Daily Variety interview:

Because the legendary actress preferred to do her own makeup, it was
Westmore's job to lay out her makeup supplies and curl six pairs of her
false eyelashes each morning before filming began.

"She was wonderful at gluing them on herself, and when you watch her pictures, you see how expressive her eyes looked," he said.

In addition to carrying Crawford's makeup to the set, Westmore also
carried another of her essentials: a cooler containing vodka and ice.

"She would always ask for a 'drink of water,' but I never once saw her
out of control," he recalled. In fact, "she always tried to get a
director tipsy when she wanted the script changed."

She tried doing that with a young Spielberg, but Westmore said he made sure the glass contained more water than vodka.

What
Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Seven Arts/Warner Bros., 1962. Directed byRobert
Aldrich, 132 minutes. Joan andBette Davis (in their only film together
aside from their cameos in 1944's Hollywood
Canteen) co-star
as psychologically bound ageing movie-star sisters. Davis was nominated
for an Oscar for Best Actress. Says Joan in CWJC:

Christ.
I still have nightmares about it. I know why the picture shouldn't have been
made, and I know why it had to be made. I was lonely, worse than lonely, bored
out of my skull, and I needed the money. Alfred had left me with nothing. Less
than nothing. It was a good script, and Bob Aldrich had tremendous faith in
it. Nobody would finance it; they didn't think either Bette Davis or I had the
box-office pull to make it a success. Finally it did get financed, but on such
a low budget we had to shoot it so quickly and improvise so many interiors and
even exteriors, I felt as though we were filming a newsreel, not a movie. I
was tense and nervous and desperately unhappy at the time, but probably nobody
on the set or in any audience noticed this, because it was part of my character.
The character I played, I mean.

Aldrich's
publicity people thought that the best way to promote the picture was to make
a big thing about a feud between me and Bette. They were half right, because
before filming began, Bette, in an interview, referred to me as a "movie
star" and to herself as an "actress." I still wonder what the
hell she meant. So I had no great beginnings in legitimate theatre, but what
the hell had she become if not a movie star? With all her little gestures with
the cigarette, the clipped speech, the big eyes, the deadpan? I was just as
much an actress as she was, even though I wasn't trained for the stage, but
we were both competing in the same medium, so weren't we both actresses? Film
stars? Former film stars, whatever? That kind of snobbery is beside the point.
She has almost as many failed marriages and troubled children and financial
problems as I have. I don't really find her all that superior, though I admire
her so much I can't really dislike her. Anyway, Aldrich got the money, and we
shot the film as though there'd been no tomorrow.

I
didn't go in blind, mind you. I knew that Bette had the best scenes, that she
could top me all along the way. I was a cripple, physically, and she was demented,
mentally, and the mental always wins out on the screen. But we didn't feud the
way the publicity people wanted us to. We weren't friends, but we got along,
and the picture was finished, and I went back to New York and Bette went back
to Connecticut, or wherever the hell, and our paths didn't cross again.

I
finished that film absolutely exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally,
you name it. Toward the end of production I finally realized it was a good film,
that I'd held my own better than I had in The Women, and that the
great actress hadn't totally defeated the mere movie star. Sure, she stole most
of my big scenes, but the funny thing is, when I see it again, that she stole
them because she looked like a parody of herself and I still looked something
like a star. I think she tried too hard, but what the hell.

It's
become a cult favorite, not just for the fag-hounds that will go to anything
Bette Davis appears in, but to civilized audiences that recognize a movie for
what it's worth. I really can't say anything against Bette--but I'm damned glad
I'm not being represented in fag circles, like Tallulah Bankhead, the way she
is. I never wanted to be some sort of joke, and thank God, I haven't been.

But
I've got to stop being bitchy. Baby Jane was a good film, good for
everyone involved, and it was a hell of a lot better than the little grotesques
we did afterward. Let's just say that everyone involved with Baby Jane
was so professional and so dedicated that what could have turned out to have
been a tired, forgettable little low-budget picture turned out to be a good
one, with a following that exists until this very day.

...I have nothing but the worst to say for When Ladies Meet. Terrible
story, terrible script, and I doubt that any actress could have made the goddam
thing believable.Adriandressed me divinely, as usual, and that's the only
good thing I can say for it. Robert Taylor and Greer Garson were wasted, too,
so I shouldn't complain too much.

Whiting,
Jack. Broadway song-and-dance man and husband-to-be of Doug Fairbanks, Jr.'s
mother Beth Sullyat the time of Doug and Joan's 1929 wedding. Whiting and Sully
were both witnesses at the wedding.

Wilkerson,
William R. Trade-paper publisher and Friend of Joan. In 1947, he introduced
his lawyer,Greg Bautzer, to Joan while in Las Vegas. Bautzer and Joan began
a 4-year affair. Wilkerson also owned a popular Hollywood nightclub, the Trocadero.

Winners
of the Wilderness. MGM silent, 1927, starringTim McCoy. Directed byW.S.
Van Dyke, 68 minutes. In
this tale of the French and Indian wars of the mid-18th century,
Joan plays French
general's daughter "Rene Contrecoeur,"
who's in love with soldier McCoy. Says Joan in CWJC: I was no match for Tim
McCoy in Wilderness.

Winter
Garden Theatre, The. NYC theater located at 1634 Broadway, which opened
in March 1911. (Its name was changed to "Cadillac Winter Garden Theatre"
in 2002.) Joan appeared in 2 J.J.
Shubert-produced
shows here: Innocent
Eyes(1924) andThe
Passing Show of 1924.

Winter,
Keith. Author of the playThe Shining Hour, which Joan saw in
New York. She askedL.B. Mayer to buy it for her, and he did. The MGM film of
the same name came
out in 1938.

Winters,
Shelley. (8/18/22 - 1/14/2006) Enduring actress who debuted
onscreen in 1943. She's perhaps best
known for her roles in A Place in the Sun (1951), Lolita (1962),
and Poseidon Adventure (1972).IMDB
info.

Joan had this to say
about Winters: "I saw Shelly Winters in A Place in the Sun. She gave a very
moving performance, which surprised me, because Shelly is not a sensitive girl
socially."
Winters had this to say about Joan: "My idea of a movie star is Joan Crawford,
who can chew up two directors and three producers before lunch." In Winters'
book The Middle of My Century, she writes about an encounter with Joan
in 1955 while Winters was starring on Broadway in "A Hatful of Rain"
and had broken a leg during a performance:

I was
resting in my dressing room when Joan Crawford came backstage. "Well, Shelley,"
she haughtily informed me, "you were very powerful and had the entire audience
weeping, but if I had a role with a drug-addict husband, was seven months
pregnant, and had a broken leg, I could make the entire audience faint." She
then kissed me and added, "For God's sake, on opening night, when they say
'break a leg,' they don't mean you literally do it. It's an expression of good
luck." She was right. But from then on, when I was opening in a show, I warned
people not to say, 'Break a leg'."

Wolper,
David. Documentary producer who presented a film tribute to Joan (with clips
ranging from Our Dancing Daughtersto Baby Jane) at
a 1970 banquet held by theBalboa Bay Club of southern California, which was
honoring Joan as Woman of the Year.

Woman's
Face, A. MGM, 1941. Directed by George
Cukor, 105 minutes. Joan stars as the facially disfigured "Anna Holm"
in a remake of the Swedish film starring Ingrid Bergman. Melvyn Douglas plays
the doctor who helps her andConrad Veidt is
the schemer who plots to use Anna to murder his nephew. Says Joan in CWJC:

I
have nothing but the best to say for A Woman's Face. It was a splendid
script, and George let me run with it. I finally shocked both the critics and
the public into realizing the fact that I really was, at heart, a dramatic actress.
Great thanks to Melvyn Douglas; I think he is one of the least-appreciated actors
the screen has ever used. (Where would Garbo's Ninotchka have been
without him?) His sense of underplay, subordination, whatever you call it, was
always flawless. If he'd been just a little handsomer, a bit more of the matinee
idol type, he'd have been a top star. Funny, but I think A Woman's Face
was the reason I won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce. An actor who's
been around a while doesn't win an award for just one picture. There has to
be an accumulation of credits.

Norma Shearer, as usual, played the
perpetual virgin, the wronged wife.Roz Russellplayed one of the bitchiest,
funniest women ever put on film.Paulette Goddardwas beautiful and a real minx,
and all the supporting players, including Mary Boland, or especially Mary Boland,
were perfectly cast. My part--I knew it was dangerous for me to play Crystal,
but I couldn't resist. She was the epitome of the hard-headed hard-hearted gold
digger on the big make, a really nasty woman who made the audience want to hiss.
I knew that Norma would walk off with the audience sympathy and that Roz Russell
would walk off with the picture, and that I'd be hated. All came true, but I
gave a damned good performance and Cukor's direction was superb. It's a classic
film, really, and I'm proud to have appeared in it, but I don't think Crystal
wormed her way into the public's heart.

Women's Lib.
In CWJC, Joan was asked both if her career would have gone easier had the rights
of women been more established and about the women's rights movement in
general. She said:

I don't think
stronger characters like me or Kate orRoz Russell were ever intimidated simply
because we were women. (God knows Bette Daviswasn't; look at the great battle
she put up withJack Warner.) We all knew 101 ways to say "Go fuck yourself!"
without ever, or almost ever, being vulgar.

I don't think
Women's Lib came on very attractively. The leaders not only weren't feminine,
they looked as though they'd parked their semi's outside when they came in to
go on TV. Men didn't like them, naturally, and a lot of women didn't associate
and didn't want to. I wasn't exactly what you'd call a housewife, but I wonder
how many housewives wanted to be told they were leading useless lives and working
as unpaid slaves. Later on they toned down a bit and issues like--oh, equal
pay for equal work began to mean something. But at first--well, the wrong people
led the parade.

As far as the
film industry is concerned, Women's Lib is a laugh. The strong parts are still
being written for men. The casting couches have moved from movie studios to
TV studios, and from what I hear they've moved in dozens more. Are any more
women producing, directing, editing, or whatever, than in my day? I'm not anti-feminist,
but I'm inclined to agree withAdela Rogers St. Johns, when she said that Women's
Lib is a lot of hogwash, that women have always had their rights, but they were
too dumb to use them. She says that any woman with intelligence and ambition
has always been able to make it in the so-called man's world. I think she's
right. Now that I've set the Movement back five years...

Wood,
James Madison ("Daddy"). President of Columbia, Missouri's
Stephens College from
1912 to 1947. He became a mentor to Joan after he caught her at
a train station in December of 1922 trying
to leave school after her first semester there. He later gave
her three "rules for living" that she thought enough of to mention
in her '71 autobiography:

(1) Never quit a job until you finish it. (2)
The world isn't interested in your problems. When your problems are the greatest,
let your laughter be the merriest. (3) If you find you can do a job, let it
alone, because you're bigger than the job already, and that means you will shrink
down to its size. If the job is impossible, you may never get it accomplished,
but you'll grow in trying to accomplish it.

A decade after leaving
Stephens, Joan would say:

I'll
always love Dr. Wood....He was the first person to tell me that my aspirations
are all right. He was the first person to speak as though I might realize
them. In that little talk at the train station at Columbia, he gave me more
to benefit me through life, more human education than all the hours in the classroom
put together. He'd be surprised to learn the places where I have heard him repeating
his words---while I was a member of a cheap road show, while I was kicking in
the chorus on Broadway, in cabarets and Hollywood dance halls. I could always
hear him say, 'Don't run away; let your record do you justice.' And I've always
tried to obey him. (JCB)

Though they never saw each other again after
she left Stephens, the two corresponded
until his death in 1963.

Note: His words to
Joan beneath his picture at upper left say: "A friend of the Billie who was---And
to the Joan who now is---And is yet to be." Year unknown.Photo and
bio below are from the 1923 Stephens College yearbook, the Stephensophia.
Click on either to see larger.

Viviane
Woodard Cosmetics. In 1964, Joan received this cosmetics company's
"Most Fascinating Actress" award.Joan served on
the advisory panel of the company in 1966-67, along with Rudi
Gernreich and Candice Bergen.

Woolf,
James and John. Owners of Romulus Films, which produced Joan's 1957 movie The Story of Esther Costello.
(Joan was an uncredited co-producer on the film.)

World's
Fair (New York, 1964-1965). Joan was instrumental in both the
recruiting of Walt Disney and the completion of Disney's "Pepsi
Pavilion" at the Fair. Writes Paul Anderson in his 2001 article, "Disney and the 1964 New York World's Fair":

...The last of the World's Fair projects to be undertaken, and perhaps the most stunning Disney achievement for the Fair, was "It's A Small World." Pepsi-Cola, who was working with UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children's welfare, was looking for an attraction that would provide a "salute to UNICEF and all the world's children."...

Not even a month had gone by since Walt had accepted Pepsi's invitation, and he already had his show designers working on concepts, a boat-ride system for the Pavilion, and plans for the building in New York, with construction to begin soon. It was a masterful start to what appeared like an impossible mission.

Joan Crawford to the Rescue

... [P]reliminary ideas ... were put together ... and [flown] out to Pepsi's headquarters in New York for a presentation. Pepsi's board of directors watched with a detached interest [as they were] told of the preliminary plans for the happiest cruise that ever sailed. When [the presentation was] finished, most of the board reacted in a negative manner, asking such questions as, "Why do we need this Mickey Mouse thing?"

The reaction illustrates why Pepsi approached Disney so late in the game. "They couldn't get to first base with any designer or anything," recalled Bob Gurr. "Finally, a year after they should have started, they approached us." Joan Crawford, the film actress, was on the board of directors for Pepsi. She knew that Disney was working on three Pavilions, so it was under her suggestion that Pepsi approached Disney.

It was only about ten months from the opening of the Fair, and Pepsi's board of directors was about to make the same mistake it had made with the previous designers; they were going to derail the concept. Joan Crawford had seen enough. She stood up, and with the talents acquired from years of playing leading ladies in Hollywood, she emphatically informed the board that, "We are going to do this!"

Addendum:
The '64-'65 NY World's Fair also had an exhibit of 3 houses, called
"House of Good
Taste," designed to "provide visitors with a yardstick
of home building and decorating standards." Below is the "Joan
Crawford Room." I have no information on why it is so called
or what Joan's contributions, if any, were to its creation.

Wray,
Fay.(9/15/07 - 8/8/2004) Most famous for her role in 1933's King Kong,
Wray also co-starred with Joan in '55'sQueen Bee and was a WAMPASBaby Star of 1926, along with Joan and 11 others.
In Wray's 1989 autobiography, On the Other Hand - A Life Story,
she wrote re Joan:

Joan Crawford had written me a note when she knew I would
be working again. It said, "Welcome...we need you." At Columbia again,
I
played a part in Queen Bee with her and had the opportunity to see
how she continued to challenge each of life's moments as she lived them:
self-critical, compulsively clean, washing her hands often and
applying
lotion from elbows to fingertips, using every free moment between
scenes
to answer fan mail, never relaxing.